


because i could not stop for death - he kindly stopped for me

by ollyollyoxenfree (onionblossomhorseradish)



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Changing Tenses, Depression, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Past Tense, Present Tense, and also some sneaky wine, character growth :), geralt doesn't want to live but then he realizes maybe he does?, posting this so i can move on emotionally and write some dumb dragon!jaskier shit, thats my specialty anyways so, theres fluff and humor here as well i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24976210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onionblossomhorseradish/pseuds/ollyollyoxenfree
Summary: Not long ago, he wouldn’t have feared this, might have been quietly resigned to it, might have even welcomed it. But not now, not when he was finally finding himself with something to live for.Not now. Please, not now.Fate was cruel, that way.-Title from the Emily Dickinson poem. I wanted to explore my experience of living and dealing with depression through Geralt and his (incredibly depressing) witcher life. Near-death experiences and mentions of suicidal ideation ahead, though it's not Geralt trying to die so much as not caring if he does.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 8
Kudos: 116





	because i could not stop for death - he kindly stopped for me

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god, I've been wrestling with this thing for what feels like forever, so I'm just going to call it done and post it here. I struggled with trying to write a depression recovery fic with a developing relationship in it that didn't hinge on romance as the cure-all, and I'm hoping I got that idea across? In any case, I had a lot of fun writing this, but wow, I'm gonna stick to fluff and comedy in the future, I think, because I'm not cut out for writing EMOTIONS for this many words. It's exhausting.

Geralt feels the breath punched out of his lungs first, and then the pain, searing deep into his body, into places pain - not to mention bruxa claws - should never get to. Places like through his diaphragm and between his ribs.

The bruxa twists her claws, and the pain was searing before, but it bursts into dragonfire now, shooting from one side of Geralt’s torso and right out the other. 

He wrenches himself away from the bruxa, and it only intensifies the pain and now blood is running hot down his armor. He looks down at himself, the dark patch seeping through his gambeson, and he knows he’s fucked.

The least he can do is take out the bruxa on his way out.

His actions are practiced, mechanical, driven by his body and decades of practice - his head isn’t in it, his head is swimming and full of sand and his vision is going around the edges. He connects with the bruxa, sword slicing through flesh and bone, but he’s in no state to appreciate the satisfaction of a clean kill. 

Of course, this was always how it was going to be - this was always how he was going to die. It was the way of witchers.

He crumples, knees hitting the ground hard, and there’s blood on the ground, running into his boots, salty and metallic. His life is slipping out of his fingers and pooling on the ground, and this was always how he was meant to die, but his final thought is one of regret. It’s not a particularly coherent thought, being somewhere between consciousness and not, shock and pain muddying his head, but it’s there, tinged with fear and sorrow and the things left unsaid, undone and unfinished.

Not long ago, he wouldn’t have feared this, might have been quietly resigned to it, might have even welcomed it. But not now, not when he was finally finding himself with something to live  _ for _ . 

Not now. Please, not now.

Fate was cruel, that way.

No one chose to be a witcher.

The life and death of a witcher followed well-worn patterns, carved like wheel-ruts into cobblestones. Take a contract, complete it, pocket the coin and move on. It was scraping by job after job, making enough money to get to the next city, eating enough to stumble on another day, and leaving before the townsfolk got too nervous.

The trials did not - as many believed - drain the emotion from him. No, it was everything that came afterwards that had.

The firsts, he remembers vividly: the first man he killed, the first one he couldn’t save, the first orphan he carried back to town as she wailed for her mother. The seconds, and thirds, however, all blended together, forming one singular blur of death and blood and pain.

The first time Geralt faced death was at Kaer Morhen, during his training. It would not be the last time he would come so close, not even the last time he would while in training, but it was seared, terrifying, into his mind. Then, he had gasped and clawed onto life, desperate and afraid to  _ fail _ .

Geralt was too young to have dreams of much of anything when he was dropped off outside Kaer Morhen, and after that, there was no point in dreaming, anyway. His life was planned out before him on a map, a life of hunting and fighting and surviving until he did not. No witcher ever retired, no witcher ever died in their bed. He was close to death every day, knew its inevitability, so it was, perhaps, natural, that on some nights, the nights when he couldn’t escape from the dreams, when the smell of rot stuck heavy in his lungs and guilt sat like a stone in his stomach, he began to burn for it. He had once, when hunting, come across a rabbit in a trap, its foot caught and mangled between a pair of metal jaws, and he had cast Axii on it before slitting its throat. He had eaten the rabbit, told himself it had only made his job of finding dinner easier - but he knew he had acted not out of utility, but mercy. He knew sometimes the only thing that could be done for something was to let it die quickly and quietly.

He had always known, from the beginning, that any fight could be his last. But the longer he followed the path, the less he found he cared about that eventuality. He remembered that first time he came close to death, the primal terror he had felt; but he didn’t feel it anymore. His life was an endless rhythm, and it made no difference to him whether it was a nest of nekkers or a grave hag that did him in, whether the end came tomorrow or in twenty years. At the very goddamn least he might get some rest.

He had thought of it, even, as a strength. Witchers should not fear death - so what if he welcomed it, just a little bit?

As much as his hunts, his days, his years blurred together, he remembered the most recent time he had come close to death. He had thought, as the wyvern he’d been fighting dropped him from a very considerable height, that he was done for - and he had felt so very, very  _ neutral _ about that. Somehow that was worse than a lust for death - the apathy he had felt in its face. When he woke up days later in an alchemist’s cot, his first thought was a flash of irritation, bitter and bile-yellow, at having survived, at the weeks of recovery he was now going to have to suffer through.

That had all changed when he met Jaskier.

It was not that Jaskier was his  _ reason _ for living, his sole source of joy, or anything like that. Jaskier was usually an irritant at best, far from the beacon of light that he might have thought himself to be. It was not, either, that Jaskier was magical, able to pull the worries from Geralt’s mind and cure him of his suffering.

But Jaskier was…  _ contagious _ . He was wildly optimistic, found the good in the world, even if he had to claw through so much misery and horror and horseshit to reach it. He had the eyes of an artist, not a weapon, and so he saw in the world poetry that was invisible to Geralt. And as much as Geralt tried not to, he eventually caught bits and pieces of that world.

“Oh, look at that!” Jaskier’s voice was high and breathy on the cool dusk breeze. It grated against Geralt’s ears, the cheer and childish wonder in it.

Geralt did not look at whatever Jaskier was exclaiming about. He kept his eyes glued on the road ahead, and urged Roach to keep plodding along the uneven dirt path.

But Jaskier was damned persistent. Geralt heard the dirt crunching under his feet as Jaskier half-jogged up to Roach, and then jumped when a hand curled around his ankle. Geralt turned with a snarl, ready to divorce that hand from its owner, only to see a disarmingly genuine smile on the bard’s face.

“Just, humor me a moment, would you?”

The daylight was fading, and they were still too far from the nearest town, the scent of woodsmoke thin and distant in the air. Geralt meant to shake Jaskier off, tell him to keep moving, maybe tell him to stay behind on his own if he wanted to so goddamned badly - but his eyes followed the line that Jaskier’s outstretched arm made, waving behind them to a break in the thick trees.

“It’ll just take a moment,” Jaskier said, slipping a small leather-bound notebook out from a pouch around his waist and turning back around.

Geralt paused for just too long, and suddenly Roach decided for herself where they were going, wandering after Jaskier to nibble at the grass around his feet.

The road they were on wound tightly around a steep range of wooded hills, walled in by trees on all sides, save for the gap of a meadow that Jaskier was now staring out at. The meadow was speckled with flowers, cracking open a view of the landscape below, a sprawling vista peering down on the villages nestled below. The last rays of the sun hit the tops of trees and chimneys, gilding them, glowing yellow against the deep green of the forest.

“Isn’t it just so beautiful?” Jaskier was frantically scribbling in his notebook, no doubt snippets of poetry and lyrics that Geralt would be fighting to tune out as soon as Jaskier put them to a melody.

Geralt looked into the meadow, picked out the useful plants growing in it by sight - arenaria, ginatia, white myrtle. He scanned the horizon for movement, the dark shadow of a wyvern or a flock of ravens on the sky. Listened for the snarling of wolves or the cracking of dead branches in the woods, came up only with the songs of crickets and mid-summer cicadas.

He was startled out of his thoughts by a hand on his leg, again, a finger poking his thigh in admonishment. He shot a glare at Jaskier, who was still smiling mildly up at him.

“Stop that,” he said, “I can tell you’re doing your… witchery,  _ thinky _ stuff.”

Geralt blinked. Of fucking course he was.

“Don’t you ever just take the time to appreciate a beautiful view?”

The answer leapt unconsciously to the tip of his tongue - he never did. Something in his chest caught on the thought, and he swallowed quickly around the lump in his throat.

Jaskier was babbling onwards, oblivious to Geralt’s train of thought, “Of course you don’t,” he was saying, “But it doesn’t hurt to stop, just for a moment. The sun’ll dip below those mountains soon enough, and that wonderful color will be gone, and it would be such a tragedy to miss it.”

Geralt looked up to the sky again, and this time searched not for danger but the color Jaskier was speaking of. He hadn’t noticed before, but now as he turned his attention to it he could see it: the riot of color smeared throughout the clouds. Velvet purples and soft roses drifted across each other, the falling sun painting their bellies orange and yellow.

Bafflingly, his chest felt tight.

He nudged Roach around, back down the path, not looking back as Jaskier squawked at him and scrambled to catch up.

They were a few hours out of town, the sun sitting high and unrelenting in the sky. It was a rarity that they stayed in a town big enough to have a market, and Geralt was grateful for that, because while Jaskier was always a menace in public, he was even worse when the streets were lined with vendors selling jewelry and hot food. It had taken them nearly an hour to get from the inn they had stayed at to the town’s gates, only because Jaskier had dawdled and perused and window shopped the entire goddamn way. When they had finally gotten going, it was with the sweet-sap scent of browned butter and sugar following them - following Jaskier, specifically.

Geralt was never sure how much Jaskier actually listened when he told him about his witcher abilities, or how far the knowledge sunk in - so he wasn’t sure if Jaskier thought he was being sneaky, or just didn’t give a damn that Geralt could smell the sweets on him from a mile off.

Not that Geralt cared what Jaskier spent his money on, even if it was frivolous, sticky indulgences. It bothered him, though, that the hot bread-and-caramel smell drowned out the more subtle scents of the forest around them, the warning tang of fresh blood or the earthy scent of a nearby swamp. 

When it was time to take a break for food and water and for horse and humans both, Jaskier sat down in the grass with a dramatic groan, and pulled a linen-wrapped bundle from his pack. The sweet bakery smell grew even stronger as Geralt tended to Roach, murmuring his gratefulness to her as she grazed. He turned to see Jaskier sucking sticky pastry off of the pad of his thumb, and felt a tiny betrayal of a smile gracing his face. It was just so like Jaskier, the sweet tooth he had, the ways he found to indulge himself even as they spent their days on the road and their nights on the ground. 

Geralt willed his face flat when Jaskier glanced over at him. He fished around in Roach’s saddlebags for his own market purchases - dry bread, cured beef, and apples.

He sat down on the grass beside Jaskier. Usually, he took the shortest breaks possible, ate on Roach or walked along her if she was tired enough to need the rest but not too tired they were forced to stop. Lately, he had found himself giving in to Jaskier’s begging, resting for longer when they stopped, letting Jaskier spend longer than he should’ve basking in the sun and fiddling with compositions.

When he sat down next to Jaskier the bard turned to rummage again in his pack, bringing out a second cloth-wrapped pastry.

“Really, Jaskier?” He raised a brow, “We won’t be coming across another bakery soon - best to save it, isn’t it?”

Jaskier scoffed, the offended look on his face undercut by the smear of crumbs across his cheek, “It’s not for  _ me _ !”

Geralt blinked at him.

Jaskier growled, and pushed the bundle into Geralt’s hands. He reacted belatedly to it, and when Jaskier pressed it into his palms it was sticky and still a little warm.

“Oh,” Geralt said.

“It would’ve been rude of me not to share my sweet buns, you know,” Jaskier said, and Geralt was impressed that he could deliver an innuendo while still sounding so offended.

Geralt swallowed, looking down at the pastry in his hands.

“...Thank you.”

He let the sun fall over his face as he ate. The bun was syrupy in his hands and cloyingly sweet and it stuck to his teeth, and he found himself halfway through it before he realized. Then he thought to slow down, focusing to taste every bite. It was new to him - the food he ate usually was better left unsavored, the potions he drank were even worse - but as he chewed he found he appreciated the subtle flavors, the texture of the bread, chewy and airy at once, the way the browned sugar soaked into it like a sponge and burst sweet and summery across his tongue.

“Good, isn’t it?” Jaskier nudged him.

Geralt offered Jaskier a sheepish glance in agreement.

Jaskier leaned back, hands pillowed behind his head, and closed his eyes. Geralt licked the last of the crumbs and sugar from his fingers, tasting both the salt of his skin and the sweet of the sugar on them.

He laid back in the grass, too, let the blades cool his skin where they met it, soft and ticklish, swaying in the breeze. Let the sun dance across his dark armor, warming him to the core, listening in on the birdsong around them.

Geralt saw the world through the eyes of a predator, not a poet. Still, he could see beauty as well as anyone - better, in fact, thanks to the mutations - he had only to learn to look for it.

Color and sound blur into Geralt’s consciousness, a near-fever dream, disappearing like smoke as he fades awake. There’s pain splitting through his chest and pounding in his skull. He could have been out for seconds or days, and his grasp on consciousness is slippery still, his eyes struggling to focus on a face far above him.

_ Jaskier _ .

He’s being held, dragged maybe, he thinks he might be moving, and Jaskier is holding him, tears streaked down his face. His cheeks, eyes, nose, are all blotchy and pink with emotion.

Geralt groans, and attempts to reach out to Jaskier. He swipes at him, grabs some article of clothing or other and tries to hold on. The effort is monumental, only for his fingers to curl weakly around Jaskier’s collar, the act of grasping even so lightly a strain.

“Geralt?” Jaskier’s eyes meet his, wide and desperate and wet.

Geralt tries to reply, but all that comes out is a little trickle of blood, dripping across his chin and running, ticklish, down his throat.

“Oh, gods, Geralt,” Jaskier sounds strained. Geralt figures it’s a mixture of worry and exertion both. Artlessly, he fumbles Geralt onto his side, so the blood collecting in his mouth runs down his face instead of slipping back into his lungs and drowning him. The bard could be smart, when it counted.

Geralt spits blood with a vengeance, coughing and hacking it out even as the action makes his chest ache deep and piercing. Jaskier has a hand pressed to the deep wound on his chest, Geralt realizes, the pressure sending a steady thrum of pain through his ribcage.

“Jaskier-” he manages to croak out, and damn it, he needs him to  _ know _ , needs him to--

He coughs again, blood and spit trailing from his lips.

“It’s alright, Geralt, it’ll be okay, we’ll get you to a healer and stitched up, alright? Quick as you can think, we’ll get you fixed up, before you can blink,” his words are high, strained, betrayed by the plain fear on his face. “Just stay with me, alright? We’ll be there before you know it, okay?”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says again, “I- thank you.”

Jaskier’s face twists in upset, a fresh batch of tears welling up in his eyes, “Geralt, don’t say that! Thank me for what? For saving your life, which I am about to do? Well, yes, you’re very welcome for that, obviously, not that there’s any chance I  _ wouldn’t’ve  _ done this, you know, because I’m a very good and altruistic person, Geralt, but maybe save the thanking for later, just in case you jinx me-”

Geralt is slipping away (again) (finally). He reaches for Jaskier, pawing at him clumsily. “No, Jaskier-”

Jaskier shakes his head, “No? Not  _ no _ !”

“I mean…” talking hurts in his chest and his throat and his thoughts are all swimming away from him before he can catch them, “Thank you for showing me… for making it worth living.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Jaskier clutches tighter at him as he sways backwards, and Geralt is faintly aware of the wetness that soaks into his shirt as Jaskier presses his face against it, “It’s still bloody well worth living, Geralt, and that’s what you’re going to fucking do, do you hear me?”

Geralt is losing himself to something that feels a lot like sleep - might be it, even, it’s hard to tell at this point - but Jaskier’s words reverberate in his mind and something righteous sparks in him. It  _ is _ still bloody well worth living, and he’s not done, he doesn’t want to be slipping away like this, he’s fucking  _ angry _ to be lying here dying.

“I love you,” he whispers. He doesn’t know if Jaskier hears it - his limbs are growing heavy, and even as he holds onto that little piece of determination like a cliff’s edge, its ragged faces rubbing his palms raw, he fades away into unconsciousness.

Geralt and Jaskier’s partnership had never been a planned thing. It had continued as spontaneously and reluctantly as it had started. They were both travelers in their own odd ways, a wandering minstrel and a killer-for-hire. When they crossed paths, they would stick together for a while - sometimes a longer or shorter while - and then they would drift apart again. There was no negotiating, no logistics to figure out. They had never needed that.

But just this once they both had been headed in the same direction with their own detours leading them apart in the middle, and so Jaskier had made plans to meet back up with Geralt in Oxenfurt in time for the midsummer fair and Geralt, for some reason, had agreed.

Even more mystifying to Geralt was the fact that he found himself  _ looking forward _ to seeing Jaskier again.

It made Geralt realize he hadn't looked forward to anything for a very, very long time. It was odd for thoughts of the future to fill him with a thrum of excitement and potential instead of flat, gray dread.

And that wasn't the last of it, either.

He’d found himself looking forward to lots of things, lately. Even if it was just a night on a bed in an inn instead of on the rocky ground, or a hot bath, he looked forward to it. Found himself, more and more often, savoring the nice things when they came.

And when he met up with Jaskier, and they spent an afternoon and an evening enjoying the festivities in the city, he had  _ fun _ . They drank good wine, nicer than either of them could afford for more than one evening, and ate good food - Jaskier bought an extra sweet bun for Geralt, refusing to be paid back - and played cards.

As the night was winding down, they sat on the docks, Jaskier swinging his bare feet into the seaspray. The cool maritime breeze carried the scent of salt and kelp but also candlesmoke, bonfires and food, the complex sweet-rancid mixture of a bustling city overlaid more heavily by the aroma of the celebration, the perfumes drifting off of dolled-up noblewomen and the nectar of fresh bouquets hung about.

Geralt pulled the tie from his hair, letting it fall loose and long around his face, the breeze catching and playing with it. Lanterlight twinkled off of the bay before them as the sound of lapping waves covered up the noise of the celebration, sinking a deep calm into Geralt’s bones.

He looked over to Jaskier, who had drunk as much as him and was thrice as inebriated. He was holding a mostly-empty tankard in his hand, humming bits of the last song they’d heard before wandering off, a soft flush across his cheeks that always appeared after he had enough drink.

Geralt felt warm, deep in his chest, and knew it wasn’t the wine.

“You know, this really takes me back,” Jaskier spoke up, dangling his mug precariously from his fingertips, “to school, and all that.” His voice was muzzy and light as he watched the water thoughtfully.

Geralt looked at him, traced the torchlight hitting his cheekbones and dusting them with light, and felt so relaxed. He almost never let his guard down, but something about this night, about the merriment and the mead, the warmth rising from the sun-baked cobbles mixing with the damp ocean air, made him feel like he could afford to, just this once. Jaskier was here, and the city was full of celebration instead of monsters, and it felt like a truce, a rare moment of calm that Geralt wanted to soak up like a cat in a sunbeam.

“If young Jaskier could see me now,” Jaskier was saying, pausing to down the last of his ale, “he would not  _ bele- bela- believe _ what I’ve done. All the songs I’ve wrote, oh, and everywhere we’ve been!”

Jaskier tossed his head over to look at Geralt, a stupid, tipsy grin across his face, and Geralt, letting his guard down once more, smiled back at him. He felt that warmth in his chest kindle into a fire, making a home in him.

“I mean, look at us!” Jaskier tossed an arm around Geralt’s shoulder and tugged him clumsily in against his side, “We’ve been all across the continent, and you’ve killed monsters, and I’ve sung songs, and-” he cut himself off, a flicker of wistfulness crossing his face.

“What?” Geralt asked, craning his neck to look at Jaskier. From this angle, pressed warm against his side, Geralt could see the tiny, faint freckles that graced Jaskier’s cheeks.

“Well, it’s just…” Jaskier sighed, but it wasn’t an unhappy sigh, “if young Jaskier could see me now, he’d be thrilled to know he actually got all those adventures he dreamed of...”

Jaskier turned his head to look at Geralt as he trailed off. Geralt realized how close they were like this, Jaskier’s arm a comfortable weight across his shoulders, his breath ghosting over Geralt’s neck, smelling of wine and honey and rosemary. 

Geralt swallowed, turning to look towards the water, away from Jaskier.

“Hmm,” he said.

He felt Jaskier shift next to him, letting the hand around Geralt’s shoulders loosen and drop away a fraction. “What, er, about you?”

“Hmm?” Geralt turned to give him an inquisitive look.

Jaskier waved a hand in front of himself vaguely, “What would little Geralt… gods, I can’t even imagine you as anything but a hulking old grump-” he giggled “-were you born with a head of white hair like a little old man baby? Eh, no matter, you know what I mean - what would young  _ you _ think of all this? Probably would’ve picked a better travel companion if it was a fantasy of your own making, I know, but still…”

Jaskier was getting to the rambly stage of drunkenness, and Geralt found himself unable to focus on the words he was still babbling. What would young  _ him _ have thought of anything? He had never thought of the future, never daydreamed. He knew what it would entail: he would be a witcher, follow the Path. The details didn’t matter.

“He’d be surprised I’m still alive,” Geralt said, honestly.

Jaskier hiccuped a laugh at that, and the sound twisted sour into Geralt’s belly. Geralt felt himself tense, wince, at the sound. Of course it had sounded like a joke to Jaskier.

Jaskier must have felt the tension in him, because he turned to meet Geralt with a confused expression, even as Geralt shifted his gaze away from the other man.

Geralt shrugged Jaskier’s arm from his shoulder and stood, cutting off the question that was forming on Jaskier’s face before it could be voiced, “It’s getting late. We should head back.”

Much to Geralt’s surprise, he wakes up again.

He’s moving, and he feels pressure around his arms and his chest, and his first reaction is to fight and thrash and wriggle free, panic humming through his blood.

“Geralt, Geralt, it’s okay!” Foggily, he recognizes Jaskier’s voice.

Geralt stills, blinking into the light, willing his breathing to slow. The world is too bright, and he fights to bring it into focus as his pupils slip wide, then narrow.

“Jaskier?” He asks, trying to track the two blurred figures standing near him.

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re alright.” Jaskier pets his arm, and he focuses on it, an anchor pulling him into reality, “We were just changing your bandages.”

Geralt focuses on the second figure in the room, a woman clad in simple clothing dyed in warm browns and quiet greens. Her sleeves are rolled up to her elbows, and her dress pockets are stuffed full of clean linens and herbs that Geralt can taste on the air.

“May I?” She reaches tentatively towards him, and Geralt sees the bandage wrapped around his chest. Jaskier’s still holding him upright, helping him up as he shifts back into a sitting position, pain shooting up his chest at the effort.

He nods, grunts an affirmation. Her steady brown eyes meet his, and there’s no fear in the gaze she offers back. With delicate fingers, she unwraps the bandage around his chest, and Geralt takes stock of his surroundings. There are cobwebbed roof beams above him, and the cot he is sitting in is piled high with worn linen blankets.

“How long?” He asks, tilting towards Jaskier, voice rough with disuse.

“You’ve been out since yesterday,” Jaskier’s voice is tense at his shoulder, where the man is still holding him steady and upright.

Geralt turns to look at him, catches the dark circles under his eyes and his hair hanging limp and dull across his forehead. He always did have a nervous tic of running his hands through it.

The woman - healer, herbalist? - sucks in a breath when she pulls the bandages away from Geralt.

“What’s wrong?” Jaskier asks immediately, panic spiking in his voice.

She shakes her head, “Oh, nothing - I just was not familiar with witcher healing.”

Geralt cranes his neck to see for himself the gnarled twist of pink flesh across his chest. Last he had seen, it had been a ragged, red tear, gushing blood. Now it’s fresh skin, soft and fragile and still working to fill in the gaps left behind by bruxa claws, but it’s healed in a day what a normal man’s body could heal in a fortnight.

“You were not kidding about the speed,” she adds.

“Thank the gods for that,” Jaskier says, and Geralt can feel the tension drain out of him, the ways his hands soften around his bicep and against his back.

With some effort, Geralt grunts, “I’m well enough to leave.”

Jaskier and the woman both fix him with an eerily similar  _ look _ .

“ _ Geralt _ -” Jaskier chides, just as the woman says “I should think not!”

Geralt blinks.

She waves a hand, “It’s late in the day, witcher. You’ll stay the night, at least. I’d have you rest longer, but considering your mutations, you can leave tomorrow if you must.”

“We don’t want to impose-” He starts.

The woman cuts him off quickly, “Well, for my sake, stay a little longer. I’d hate to send a patient out before they were ready.”

She smiles kindly at Geralt at that, and then untucks something from one of her many dress pockets. “Now, let me rebind it.”

Geralt doesn’t argue as she scoops salve from a small bowl. The scent of vinegar, honey and rose hits his nose sharply as she spreads the balm across his chest.

“It doesn’t hurt, does it?” Jaskier asks, quietly.

Geralt shakes his head, “Just cold,” he murmurs back.

That startles a soft laugh out of the bard, and Geralt’s heart flutters. He’s glad to hear the sound.

The healer wraps fresh bandages around his chest, and Jaskier presses his hand more firmly against Geralt’s back as she does, pushing him upright so she can wind the linen all the way around his torso. 

“Alright,” she says, wiping her hands off on her skirt. “You can lie back down.” She tucks the ends of the bandage into themselves, and pulls the blanket back up over Geralt. “I’ll give you two some peace and quiet now.”

She gathers her things to leave the room, but Geralt is focused on Jaskier, who’s pressing him back into the bed, hands leaving Geralt’s arms and shoulders where they had held him steady; his skin feels cool in the absence of them.

Geralt takes a moment to be still, taking stock of his location and his body. He’s tired, but it’s already been long enough that there’s little pain left in his wounds - just the itchy ache of muscles knitting themselves whole again. He's safe, too, his bandages doctored and changed by a healer, Jaskier at his side.

“Did you drag me all the way here on your own?” He asks, catching Jaskier’s eye. He’s perched in a chair at Geralt’s bedside, one leg bobbing incessantly against the floor.

“Roach helped.” Jaskier gives him a wry smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

Geralt reaches out, placing a hand on Jaskier’s knee and stilling it.

“I meant it,” Geralt says. Jaskier needs to know - how grateful Geralt is, how glad he is to have survived, how much Jaskier  _ means _ to him.

He swallows hard and his eyes flick away from Geralt’s to chase restlessly around the room. “Well, like I said, I’m a very altruistic person.”

“No, Jaskier, I mean-” he wrestles for the words, wishing he had the eloquence of another man, wishing Jaskier wasn’t strangely determined to make this difficult, “This isn’t the first time I’ve come close to dying, Jaskier.”

Jaskier turns away with a harsh exhale, “Of course,” he says. The words strike, bitter, into Geralt’s chest.

Fuck, he’s already gotten off on the wrong foot.

“What I mean is, this time I wanted to live.”

Jaskier rounds on him, “ _ This time?!” _

There’s shock and anger on Jaskier’s face, and Geralt recoils, feels all of the sudden like a trapped animal. 

“Geralt… what the fuck do you mean?”

Geralt looks away. His stomach twists sickly, “I mean what I said.”

Jaskier sounds equal parts incredulous and angry, “Geralt, are you telling me you’ve secretly been harboring thoughts of  _ suicide _ the entire godsdamn time I’ve known you?!”

Geralt sputters, snapping back to face Jaskier “I would never-”

“But you don’t want to live?” Jaskier barks. His emotions are heavy on his face and in the air, a bitter spicy mix of stress-scents, adrenaline and anger.

“I didn’t  _ want _ to die,” Geralt growls, “I just… didn’t care.”

“Why didn’t you say?”

Anger flares up in his chest, and Geralt challenges, “What would you have had me say?”

“I- I don’t know,” Jaskier’s indignation falters, “But you shouldn’t-”

“I know,” Geralt snaps.

His stomach is in knots, and as much as he hated the anger on Jaskier’s face, it’s bleeding into pity, and that’s far worse. Geralt pulls his hand back from where it’s laying on Jaskier’s knee, cradles it close to himself. Of course this is how this conversation is going. He was never good with words, and talking about  _ feelings _ -

“Geralt, hey- wait-”

Geralt looks up as Jaskier’s hand lands on his shoulder, gentle, tentative.

“I’m sorry,” Jaskier says, “Talk to me.”

“What more is there to say?” Geralt shrugs the hand off of him.

Jaskier is sufficiently chided, leaning back, for once apparently lost for words. He swallows hard, studies the floorboards.

Finally, he asks, “What changed?”

“You,” Geralt says, simply.

Jaskier looks up then, his eyes catching Geralt’s, and they’re storming full of something complex - hope and fear and sadness all together.

“Well, Geralt, that’s incredibly flattering,” Jaskier says, “But I do hope you don’t go back to wishing yourself dead whenever I’m away at Oxenfurt.” There’s still a bite to his words.

“No, it’s not  _ you _ -” Jaskier blinks, and Geralt quickly adds, “It’s not  _ not _ you- I mean, you… rubbed off on me.”

Jaskier looks like he’s about to make a joke, and Geralt shoots him a glare.

“I wasn’t raised to love anything,” Geralt sighs, hopes Jaskier will understand, “not even life.”

“Well, that’s horrible,” Jaskier breathes.

“It’s life. For a witcher.”

“That’s horrible,  _ too _ !” Jaskier’s emotions are flaring up again, a cloyingly potent defense of Geralt’s honor, like they so often are.

“No one ever told me that,” Geralt says, “Not until I met you.”

“So, what, that was all it took for you to believe it?” Jaskier scrunches up his brow.

“You’re… unique. You can see beauty anywhere.”

“And?”

“You taught me to.” Geralt shrugs. “It’s that simple."

Jaskier looks surprised, and then his face lights up in a grin, “Awww, Geralt! You  _ do _ like me.”

Geralt nods, “I meant that, too.”

Jaskier’s breath catches, “Ah, I, er, thought you might not have remembered…”

“I do,” Geralt says, “And I love you.”

Jaskier’s heartbeat trips himself up for a moment, cheeks pinking.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to overwhelm you with... all of this.” Geralt waves a hand at himself, and then crosses it across his chest, feeling self-consciousness bubble up, “I know it’s a lot to deal with.”

“No, I mean, I’m not complaining!” Jaskier says, quickly, “But, gods above, Geralt, I thought you were going to die! And the last thing you would’ve said to me- and then you tell me you wouldn’t’ve  _ cared _ -” his voice is high and desperate.

“I wanted you to know,” Geralt says, quiet.

Jaskier swallows heavily, blinking quickly, “I didn’t want to lose you. You can’t just tell someone you love them like that!”

Geralt blinks, feeling guilty at the sight of Jaskier’s teary eyes.

“I mean,  _ no _ , of course you can, and I’m glad you did,” Jaskier quickly says, wiping his face on his sleeve, “I just… I was so worried. I didn’t want to lose you as soon as you’d…” he cuts himself off, voice cracking.

“Well, I’m still here,” Geralt says.

“Gods am I glad of that,” Jaskier breathes.

“Me, too,” Geralt says, “Now are you going to kiss me?”

Jaskier does. He lunges desperately at Geralt, clumsy and terrified and relieved, and Geralt melts against him. Jaskier is soft and warm under his lips, and this close Geralt can smell him, his sweat, his perfume, his filthy travel clothes, the salty bite of tears on his cheeks. He curls a hand around Jaskier’s neck, threads through the short soft hair at the back of it, and feels it tickle against his palms.

“I love you, too,” Jaskier says, when they part, painfully earnest, tears still pricking at the corners of his eyes.

Geralt pulls him in, holds Jaskier against his chest. 

“I’m sorry,” Geralt says. “For scaring you.”

Jaskier laughs wetly.

It’s a stupid apology, for nothing that’s his fault. They both know it, and they both know the words it’s substituting:  _ I hate to see you hurt, I hope you know that, I wish it had never had to be. _

“All is forgiven, dear. Just promise not to die on me again.”

Geralt gently rumbles an affirmative, and squeezes Jaskier tighter against him, bandages be damned. He can hear Jaskier’s heartbeat as well as feel it, thrumming quickly against his chest, far faster than his own - as they stay there, Jaskier wrapped around him and him around Jaskier, it starts to slow. Jaskier burrows against Geralt, burying his nose against his neck. For a long time, there’s only the sounds of their twin breaths, evening out until they meet in a soft rhythm. 

“Tell me, was it the sunsets or the sweet buns that you stuck around for?” Jaskier speaks up, the words muffled into Geralt’s shoulder.

Geralt considers it, “All of it,” he says, and then considers more, because as much as he savors the beauty in the world, it doesn’t stop there. “But… I think I would miss the aches and the scars, too.”

“Careful!” Jaskier pulls back to scold him, “you’ll put me out of a job with words like those.”

Geralt grins, kissing him again, just because he can. He leans into Jaskier’s touch and pretends he’s made to hold bards and watch clouds and eat pastries, instead of to maim and fight and kill. Maybe he could be both. Maybe he’s not pretending - not when Jaskier is kissing him back electric and enthusiastic, and Geralt’s losing himself, boiling over like a pot over a fire, warmth kindling deep in his chest.

When Jaskier pulls back, Geralt is breathless, panting into the space between them.

“Sooo,” Jaskier drawls, trying and failing to hide a grin that spells trouble, “Does this mean I have to keep goading you into enjoying the finer things in life? Will I have to educate you on poetry and fine cheeses and theatre?”

Geralt pretends to think, “Couldn’t hurt…” he considers, “But it sounds like you’re trying to wine and dine me.”

Jaskier gasps, offended. “I’m a  _ gentleman _ ! Of course I’m going to wine and dine you.”

“That’ll be hard to do given we spend most of our days in the middle of the woods,” Geralt can’t resist a tease.

Jaskier, however, seems to take the statement as a challenge, “Geralt, for you, I would do anything! I’d hunt down a boar and roast it over an open fire, and harvest wild grapes to mash into the finest vintage! I’d pick grass seeds one by one and mill them into flour for bread, and wrestle mountain goats for their milk to make cheese! I swear!”

“And here you were worried about me stealing your spotlight,” Geralt laughs, and then sobers, and gives him a look, “But if you’re making me a promise, I expect you to keep it.”

Jaskier’s righteousness stutters to a halt, “Er- well… I do have a bottle of rosé stashed away in Roach’s saddlebags?”

Geralt was not aware of that. Jaskier must have been getting sneakier with age. “Well, then…” he raises an eyebrow.

“Tomorrow,” Jaskier promises, “You do know you’re supposed to be resting right now?”

Geralt tugs him down by the collar for another kiss.

“See!” Jaskier complains, “You’re terrible at listening to doctors.”

“You’re hard to resist,” Geralt teases, and Jaskier goes a wonderful scarlet at that. 

“ _ Bed _ , you rascal. Get your rest or we’ll be staying here another night, and that is a threat.” Jaskier waggles a finger at him.

Geralt rolls his eyes at him, but Jaskier is right. The healing has taken it out of him, and sleep is tugging at his eyelids, the warm lovely feeling that is currently filling his chest with only encouraging him to burrow into the bedding and let sleep take him.

“Hmmm. Tomorrow then. I’ll catch us a rabbit,” He murmurs, letting his eyes slip closed.

“It’s a date,” Jaskier agrees.

The next evening, as they’re lying with their backs to the cool ground and their shoulders touching, Geralt draws patterns in the night sky with an arm made lax and lazy from wine that had ended up being quite good. 

“Really, Geralt,” and there’s teasing surprise in Jaskier’s voice, “All this talk about how witchers were never taught anything but battle and bloodshed, and you’re telling me you know more about the stars than I do?”

Geralt smiles to himself, “They’re useful for navigation.”

“Yeah, a few of them are…” Jaskier says, “I don’t see how knowing the stories behind each constellation helps with that, though.”

At their feet, the fire glows cooler and redder as it burns down, and the warm buzz of alcohol in Geralt’s belly makes him feel more loose-lipped than usual. Or maybe that was the near-death experience’s doing.

“I came across a book in the library at Kaer Morhen when I was young,” he says, slowly, picking the words carefully. It still feels odd, to speak his mind, his heart, even after watching Jaskier do it for so long with so much ease. It still doesn’t come quickly to him. “It was all about the stars. The important parts about learning to navigate by them were highlighted. But the rest of the book was still there. I read the whole thing, more than once, learned about more than just the north star.”

He could feel Jaskier’s eyes on him, though it confused him - Jaskier surely couldn’t see him in the dark, maybe just the barest bit of firelight flickering across his cheeks. But still Jaskier looked, and Geralt could see  _ him _ well, and see the fondness written plain on his face.

“You don’t need me at all, do you?” Jaskier asks with mock glumness.

Geralt shakes his head, “I do.”

“You do?” Jaskier whispers, lips quirked into a challenge.

“Without you, who would’ve smuggled the wine all the way here?”

Jaskier smacks him across the bicep without any force, “Hey, I’m good for more than just wine smuggling!”

Geralt raises an eyebrow, “Prove it.”

“Oh, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into…”

Geralt leans over Jaskier with a hungry, wolfish grin.

“I certainly do,” he says.


End file.
